UK: Plot to 'Islamize' British Schools

"[The tactics are] totally invisible to the naked eye and allow us to operate under the radar. I have detailed the plan we have in Birmingham and how well it has worked and you will see how easy the whole process is to get the head teacher out and our own person in. ... Whilst sometimes the practices we use may not seem the correct way to do things you must remember this is a 'Jihad' and as such using all means possible to win the war is acceptable." — Quote from document leaked to the Sunday Times.

The Guardian -- an otherwise inveterate enforcer of British multiculturalism -- quotes senior teachers and school officials in Birmingham who say they recognize the tactics outlined in the document as having been used by Islamic hardliners to try to gain influence in the city's schools for over a decade.

British authorities are investigating the source of a document that purportedly outlines a plot by Muslim fundamentalists to Islamize public schools in England and Wales.

The four-page document describes a strategy—dubbed Operation Trojan Horse—to oust non-Muslim head teachers and staff at state schools in Muslim neighborhoods and replace them with individuals who will run the schools according to strict Islamic principles.

A copy of the undated and unsigned document was sent to the Birmingham City Council in November 2013, but its existence did not become publicly known until March 2014, when it was leaked to the London-based newspaper, the Sunday Times.

According to document, which can be read in full here, the five-pronged strategy is to:

Step 1. "Identify schools based in Muslim areas that you want to target... Start with the poorest performing schools first as they will be easiest for you to influence and take over."

Step 2. "Identify any Salafi [radical Islamists] parents within the school community. They are always the most committed to the faith and are hardliners in that regard and once charged up they keep going for longer... When the parents have been identified, we start to turn them against the head teacher and leadership team. The only way to do this is to tell each parent that the school is corrupting their children with sex education, teaching about homosexuals, making their children pray Christian prayers and [taking part in] mixed swimming and sports."

Step 3. The next step is to "parachute in" Muslim governors "to drip-feed our ideal for a Muslim school."

Step 4. "Identify key staff to disrupt the school from within... to eventually accuse the head of doing something wrong so that... the head resigns, or is sacked. It is also important... to ensure you have an English face amongst the group as this makes it much more believable."

Step 5. "Instigate an anonymous... letter campaign [to be circulated to MPs, press and ministers].... All these things will work towards wearing the head down, removing his/her resolve and weakening their mindset so they eventually just give up."

The document adds that the tactics to be used are:

"…totally invisible to the naked eye and allow us to operate under the radar. I have detailed the plan we have in Birmingham and how well it has worked and you will see how easy the whole process is to get the head teacher out and our own person in."

"[We have] caused a great amount of organized disruption in Birmingham and as a result we have our own academies and are on the way to getting rid of more head teachers and taking over their schools."

"Whilst sometimes the practices we use may not seem the correct way to do things you must remember this is a 'Jihad' and as such using all means possible to win the war is acceptable."

The document—which claims responsibility for recent takeovers of four schools and says it would be easy to do the same elsewhere—concludes: "We have an obligation to our children to fulfil our roles and ensure these schools are run on Islamic principles."

The former headmaster of Saltley School in Birmingham resigned following a plot by Islamist fanatics to oust him. (Image source: Screenshot from BBC video)

Speculation is rife about the source of the document. The Sunday Times believes the plot is the work of "disaffected parents" belonging to the Salafist branch of Islam who want to Islamize British society.

The Birmingham Mail says the document was probably written by a jihadist in Birmingham to an accomplice in Bradford because it contains the following sentence: "Operation Trojan Horse has been very carefully thought through and is tried and tested within Birmingham, implementing it in Bradford will not be difficult for you."

"The claim that Islamic fundamentalists are seeking to take over the running of several city schools, imposing their primitive world-view, will cause massive alarm. We make no judgment on the truth—or otherwise—of these very serious allegations. But it is clear that they need thorough investigation, that the inquiry must be transparent and that appropriate action must be taken if the claims are proved."

By contrast, Tahir Alam—a Birmingham school governor and prominent member of the Muslim Council of Britain who is mentioned in the leaked document—told the Guardian newspaper that the document was "a malicious fabrication and completely untrue."

Even if ongoing police investigations eventually conclude that the document is an elaborate hoax, what remains beyond dispute is that it addresses genuine problems linked to the growing assertiveness of Islam in the British school system.

For example, the Guardian—an otherwise inveterate enforcer of British multiculturalism—quotes senior teachers and school officials in Birmingham who say they recognize the tactics outlined in the document as having been used by Islamic hardliners to try to gain influence in the city's schools for over a decade.

Other accounts (here and here) reveal how British teachers have been bullied, smeared and driven from their jobs for resisting Islamic extremists. They tell of demands for strict dress codes, including long sleeves and wearing of the hijab for women teachers and girl pupils, and calls that Christmas celebrations, Easter eggs and any reference to Christianity should be banned.

An investigation by The Telegraph newspaper documents how an organized group of Muslim teachers, education consultants, school governors and activists is dedicated to furthering what one of them describes as an "Islamizing agenda" in Birmingham public schools.

Social media messages leaked to The Telegraph show how Muslim activists participating in a closed discussion group called "Educational Activists" describe their goals and tactics. In a typical entry—dated February 5, 2014—one member, Nasim Awan, an Islamic bookshop owner, political activist and former chair of the city's Springfield Neighborhood Forum, boasts:

"A battle was fought and won tonight at a large inner city primary school where the governors voted by 8-7 in favor of collective worship that is wholly or mainly of an Islamic character, thereby overturning five years of 'children pray in their own way and language!' The governing body is now polarized on faith grounds."

Other messages from different members include Islamic supremacist or anti-Semitic rhetoric. "JEWS have intentionally developed some websites to spread wrong information about the Koran," says one. Another message, sent from the mobile number of the deputy head of Carlton Bolling School in Bradford, Akhmed Hussain, says: "Al-Islam will prevail over all other ways of life. Look at how [the] Muslim population is increasing in the UK."

Still another message leaked to The Telegraph shows that educational excellence is not the main priority for the so-called educational activists. Awan writes: "First agenda item [for the new head teacher] is to apply for a determination," an official procedure to establish Islamic forms of worship at the school.

But Razwan Faraz, a deputy head teacher in Birmingham, advises Awan to pursue a more tactical approach:

"She [Shanaz Khan, a new Muslim head teacher at Small Heath, a secular state secondary school in Birmingham] is a very astute lady. She knows her game," Faraz writes. "Please don't pressurize her to start the Islamizing agenda first. That will be a lot easier when she is respected as leader. She has to establish herself with minimum controversy for the first six months, and lead the people to believe in her before they believe in her policies."

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-basedGatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him onFacebook and onTwitter.

Comment on this item

14 Reader Comments

Uke Nagash • Apr 3, 2014 at 04:37

Some of these schools have 99% Muslim students. Which way do you want them to go? They have to have collective worship. So what collective worship this is going to be? I think this isn't anything but scaremongering and a looking at things with black shades.

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Ephesian Uke Nagash • Apr 6, 2014 at 02:25

How you can say that this is nothing but scaremongering when in this article it quotes from a letter leaked out that shows a concerted effort to take over British schools. If Muslims want Muslim only schools then they can't have "cohesion" as they so claim to want, to be as British as anyone else in Britain! No, Britain is Britain, not Saudi Arabia and has no wish to be an Islamic country,n or will it ever be. Iftikhar's usual one sided rant shows the true intentions of Muslims in Britain and if any religion teaches separatism and splits it is the so called religion of peace, Islam.

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Barbara Griffith • Apr 2, 2014 at 23:30

This is the same thing that is being done all over the world, including the US. It is done quietly and discreetly in the colleges here and in the UK and in all of the schools in every country in the EU. Jewish students going to US colleges are discriminated against by the Muslim students who have their own clubs on campus. I read an article about this a few years ago so whatever happens in Europe will never surprise me. The Muslims have installed their own lawyers in all EU countries and the US so as to be able to jump in and defend what is going on in the schools and colleges or workplaces by alleging that everyone has a phobia against Muslims.

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Stewart • Apr 1, 2014 at 14:36

I closely follow the uncivilized ideologies and acts that are part of Islamic polity, religion, and culture. But when I read about a "plot to take over" something (schools, the world), I am reminded of the fraudulent The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic hoax purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination first published in Russia in 1903. I am also reminded that the Protocols and the videos it spawned are best sellers in the Muslim world and widely believed - hook, line, and sinker. Nevertheless, I tend to accept that there is an Islamic attempt to take over some (now, all later) British schools. I come to this conclusion, not based on a base emotional hatred of Muslims, but based on evidence, observation, and study. I read in the Koran and other Islamic law and lore that Muslims are told they are the best of people, they should convert or subdue the non-Muslim peoples (make them pay a special tax, jizyah, with willing submission), violence may (should) be used, deceit is acceptable (commendable), women and children are fair game, Muslims shouldn't be friends with Jews and Christians, they should expel Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula, and they should be unmerciful to non-Muslims. Since Islam itself commands Muslims to take over the whole world and since one can readily observe Muslims violently and stealthy inflicting their ways on the rest of the world, it is easy to give credence to a plot to takeover some British schools.

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John MacArthur • Apr 1, 2014 at 13:36

I have admired SK's articles for some time and this story which gained prominence in March is testament to Gatestone's research skills. For too long, decades indeed, the inclusivists and free multiculturalists have played fast and loose with British and European democratic freedoms and a small number of Salafist extremists have successfully hidden behind 'taqiyya'". According to sharia, in certain situations, such deception is not only permitted but sometimes obligatory. With this in mind, it is clear that the Trojan Horse document (I for one moment do not believe it to be an 'elaborate hoax' as Tahir Alam alleges) cannot be addressed by a sop to Cerberus, a feeble political murmur, easily drowned in the racist catcalling that would inevitably follow. Instead, why do we allow ourselves the decadent luxury of impoverished ignorance to cushion our thinking against a clear, present and rapidly growing danger, not just in the UK, but across Europe? Unless, of course, we are entirely willing for our democratic, universal freedoms to be systematically eroded piecemeal. The one thing the extremists have is time, which for us seems to be running out.

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Jim Heller • Apr 1, 2014 at 13:34

The Trojan Horse was a gift and so is this. Islamic supremacists could not have done Britain a greater favour than setting out their agenda to dominate and essentially overtake the country in a letter like this. The misnomered title (the real Trojan Horse was ostensibly a gift unlike this agenda which was, until now, a poorly-guarded secret but a secret nonetheless -- but then leave it to Muslims to botch Western cultural traditions) has the subtlety of a sledgehammer. And maybe this is the sledgehammer Britain's been awaiting. I certainly hope so.

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Ali Jim Heller • Apr 18, 2014 at 07:36

It's time Arabic and Qur'an should be taught as part of the curriculum in order to assist the young Muslim children and give them a healthy code of conduct in which they can live their lives. This will also help maneuver away from the misinformed teachings propagated by half-literate teachers inside after school Islamic classes.

If the local people want it, why doesn't the government give them what they want?

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Tim Ali • Jul 13, 2014 at 04:17

Britain needs to take back its christian faith and reject all other religions. Islam in particular needs to be marginalised. It certainly shouldn't be taught in British schools. Its a hate filled religion that only now people are beginning to wake up to.

I've never seen people so riled about an issue and even quite easy going people I know are extremely concerned about the way the whole system operates and the impact Islam will have in this country.

The tide is certainly turning.

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Iftikhar Ahmad • Apr 1, 2014 at 10:57

Muslim children not only need Eid Holidays, but they need state funded Muslim schools with Muslim teachers as role models during their development period also. There is no place for a non-Muslim child or a teacher in a Muslim school.

The schools must satisfy the spiritual, moral, social, and cultural needs of Muslim pupils. State schools with non-Muslim monolingual teachers are not in a position to satisfy their needs. A good school is not just a knowledge factory or a conveyor belt for churning out exam passes - it is a community, a family. A community is held together by common values and principles.

It is a common saying that British schooling is upholding British values of integration, respect, tolerance and equality. But all minority groups find British schooling is the home of institutional racism and British teachers are racist. This is one of the many reason why they would like to see their children attending their own schools with their own teachers. Muslim community started setting up school in the 80s and I set up the first Muslim school in 1981 and now there are 180 Muslim schools and only 12 are state funded. Sikh and Hindu communities have set up their own schools. Now the Black community is thinking of setting up schools with their own teachers.

Western media and politicians have been trying their best to propagate against Muslim schools. Muslim schools are even called Osama bin Laden Academies by a Teaching Union. Only less than 5% of Muslim children attend Muslim schools while more than 95% are in state schools to be mis-educated and de-educated by non-Muslim monolingual teachers. The demand for state funded Muslim schools is in accordance with the law of the land. Muslim community is not asking for any favour. Muslim community pays all sorts of taxes and is less burden on social services. Church leaders say it is no longer "appropriate" for them to run Sacred Heart RC Primary School which has just six Christian pupils. The school in Blackburn, Lancs, could be handed to the nearby Masjid-e-Tauheedul mosque.

The Muslim community has been passing through a phase of fourth Crusades. The battleground is the field of education, where the young generation will be educated properly with the Holy Quran in one hand and Sciences in other hand to serve the British society and the world at large. A true Muslim is a citizen of the world, which has become a small global village. We are going to prepare our youth to achieve that objective in the long run. A true Muslim believes in Prophet Moses and the Prophet Jesus and without them one cannot be a Muslim. My suggestion is that in all state, independent and Christian based school special attention should be given to the teaching of Comparative Religion and Islam should be taught by qualified Muslim Teachers to make the children aware the closeness of Islam to Christianity and Judaism which will help them to think about Islam, as "A Pragmatic and Modern Way of Life," during their life time.

Muslim schooling is on the rise in the West. Anti-Muslim attitudes in state schools contribute to its growth. There are 240 to 250 private Islamic schools in the U.S and 188 Muslim schools in the United Kingdom and out of that 12 are state funded. The increasing enrollment in these schools reflects the religion's growing number of Muslims and the desire of parents to shelter young Muslims from discrimination and discomfort they might encounter at state schools. But Islamic schools, like mosques and other Islamic institutions, can be viewed with distrust and even hostility.

The demand for Muslim schools comes from parents who want their children a safe environment with an Islamic ethos. Parents see Muslim schools where children can develop their Islamic Identity where they won't feel stigmatised for being Muslims and they can feel confident about their faith. Muslim schools are working to try to create a bridge between communities. There is a belief among ethnic minority parents that the British schooling does not adequately address their cultural needs. Failing to meet this need could result in feeling resentment among a group who already feel excluded. Setting up Muslim school is a defensive response. State schools with monolingual teachers are not capable to teach English to bilingual Muslim children. Bilingual teachers are needed to teach English to such children along with their mother tongue. According to a number of studies, a child will not learn a second language if his first language is ignored.

"A good grasp of one's mother tongue is an essential base for a child who then has to get to grips with the language of their host country," reckons Amelia Lambelet of the Fribourg Institute of Multilingualism. Therese Salzmann, an expert in multilingualism at the Swiss Institute of Youth and Media, agrees. "The teaching of mother tongues reinforces self-confidence and gives the child a feeling of security." She adds that "taking account of a child's double cultures is a determining factor in their social integration and professional success."

British society must learn to respect and tolerate those who are different. God has created diverse human beings to live in this tiny global village of one family. Creation by its very nature is diverse with different species, different communities, different cultures and languages. These differences represent the beauty and wonder but diversity is sometimes not fully appreciated, resulting in all sorts of clashes. The British society and Establishment must learn to respect and accommodate others, as if in a family. A report by the Institute for Community Cohesion found that native parents were deserting some schools after finding their children out numbered by pupils from ethnic minorities. Schools in parts of England are becoming increasingly segregated. The study focused on 13 local authorities. Many of the schools and colleges are segregated and this was generally worsening over recent years. This is racism because British society is the home of institutional racism. A study by Bristol University reveals that a high level of racial segregation in Oldham schools and tension between communities resulted in recent riots in 2001. The solution is that those schools where Muslim children are majority, may be designated as Muslim community schools. The native parents do not want their children to be educated along with migrant children. As soon as they find that the number of other children are on the increase, they remove their children to those schools where native children are in majority.

During colonial days, British did not follow local customs or culture. They didn't exactly "go native". They even forced the native Americans and native Australian to adopt all the evils of their culture and customs. They are still the underdogs of American and Australian societies. At least Australian Prime Minister apologised to the natives for their evil deeds. Brits living in Spain and France don't even bother learning the language of the new adopted country. Frankly suggesting that people don't want to become "British" they should move elsewhere is extremely irritating. Immigrants are in UK because they are needed, it was never an act of charity. Without migration, British economy and society will bleed to death. British culture and customs will undoubtedly change as it has for millennium due to immigration. I am not quite sure why Brits would be worried about that.

You better teach your children in your own schools and let migrant communities teach their children according to their needs and demands. British Establishment and society should concentrate on the evils of their own society and stop trying to change the way of life of Muslims. Muslim community does not want to integrate with the British society, indulging in incivility, anti-social behaviour, drug and knife culture, binge drinking, teenage pregnancies and abortion. Prince Charles, while visiting the first grant maintained Muslim school in north London, said that the pupils would be the future ambassadors of Islam. But what about thousands of others, who attend state schools deemed to be "sink schools"? In education, there should be a choice and at present it is denied to the Muslim community. In the late 80s and early 90s, when I floated the idea of Muslim community schools, I was declared a "school hijacker" by an editorial in the Newham Recorder newspaper in east London. This clearly shows that the British media does not believe in choice and diversity in the field of education and has no respect for those who are different. Muslim schools, in spite of meager resources, have excelled to a further extent this year, with couple of schools achieving 100% A-C grades for five or more GCSEs. They beat well resourced state and independent schools in Birmingham and Hackney. Muslim schools are doing better because a majority of the teachers are Muslim. The pupils are not exposed to the pressures of racism, multiculturalism and bullying.

There are hundreds of state primary and secondary schools where Muslim pupils are in majority. In my opinion all such schools may be opted out to become Muslim Academies. This mean the Muslim children will get a decent education. Muslim schools turned out balanced citizens, more tolerant of others and less likely to succumb to criminality or extremism. Muslim schools give young people confidence in who they are and an understanding of Islam's teaching of tolerance and respect which prepares them for a positive and fulfilling role in society. Muslim schools are attractive to Muslim parents because they have better discipline and teaching Islamic values. Children like discipline, structure and boundaries. Bilingual Muslim children need Bilingual Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental periods, who understand their needs and demands.IALondon School of Islamics Trusthttp://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk

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John MacArthur Iftikhar Ahmad • Apr 3, 2014 at 04:12

There is a successful Jewish educational model where the secular and religious are educated together, taught to dialogue and interact, thereby learning tolerance and respect. This would be inconceivable in a Muslim school since once Quranic prohibition enters through the door, science, progress and enlightened freedom of thought fly out of the window and to suggest that it does not is sophistry of the most naive kind. Islam's teachings on tolerance and respect are, in my view, dangerously conditional and the 'you'-'us' mentality in the article is altogether apparent. I wonder why Mr. Ahmad is in the UK at all since he seems to be contemptuous of so much of the culture and freedom under whose umbrella he currently shelters.

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Tim Iftikhar Ahmad • Jul 13, 2014 at 04:08

I couldn't get past the first few paras I'm afraid. Its simple enough - the schools are British schools and Britain is a Christian country, founded on Christian values, institutions etc.

If you don't want your children educated in a British christian school why on earth choose to live in the UK? If your religion is that important to you why not simply move to an Islamic country? Simple.

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Ali Tim • Jul 13, 2014 at 15:41

You can also probably argue that a country like India for example should eject all Christians from a Hindu majority country, as some Hindu fundamentalists would be only too glad to do, but that's not an argument at all. You're all sounding Islamophobic and need to see the benefits of a proper Islamic education, not the one created and demonised by the West and the likes of Tony Blair.

It's funny how Christians, Jews, Hindus, Atheists and Agnostics from the UK are willing to work in Muslim countries, reaping tax free benefits but then attack Muslims here in the UK; some of whom are white native British Muslims and have every right to bring about a positive change to their society.

Where the non-Muslims might focus on what divides them, Muslims prefer to focus on what unites people.

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Iftikhar Ahmad Tim • Jul 13, 2014 at 15:47

It is easy to say" Go back to where you came from", but do not forget that British Muslims are actually born and educated here. They are in the unenviable position of trying to combine two different worlds. That is no easy. We do not want to change you lot but we would like to see our children getting balanced Islamic education along with National Curriculum. We would like our children to learn and be well versed in standard English to follow the National Curriculum and go for higher studies and research to serve humanity. At the same time we would like our children to learn and be well versed in Arabic, Urdu and other community languages to keep in touch with their cultural roots and enjoy the beauty of their literature and poetry. A Muslim is a citizen of this tiny global village. He/she does not want to become notoriously monolingual Brit. Bilingualism is an asset but British schooling regards it as a problem.

We live in a shrunken world and millions of people are on the move; one of our biggest challenges is how we learn to live in proximity to difference – different skin colours, different beliefs and different way of life. According to a study by COMPAS, Muslims born and educated were given the impression of outsiders. The perception among Muslims is that they are unwelcome in Britain is undermining efforts to help them integrate into wider society. Most of them say that they have experienced race discrimination and religious prejudice. Muslims and Islam is promoted a fundamentalist and separatist by the western elite, which have negative impact on community and social cohesion. The number of racist incidents occurring in London Borough of Redbridge's schools have reached their highest levels since record begin.

A City or a locality, where Muslims are in majority is a ghetto. There is a tendency for people of similar backgrounds to live together in neighbourhoods. The term"ghettoisation" is inappropriate. The original ghettos in Europe during the middle ages were set up by law to confine the Jewish population to one area of a city. According to a research by an Australian academic that Muslim communities in Britain are being increasingly ghettoized in a trend that set back hopes of assimilation by years. Britain has now eight cities in the top 100 most ghettoized cities. The people from the Pakistani community in Bradford and Oldham and Leicester had trebled during the decade. A report by an academic Dr Alan Carling, that Bradford risks becoming a front line in the global clash between the West and Islam. But Islam and Muslims do not clash with the concepts of pluralism, secularism and globalisation. The native flight from Bradford's inner-city wards showed clear evidence of an increase in segregation in the city since 1991. Native parents are avoiding sending their children in state schools where Muslims and other minorities are in majority. The dominance of Pakistani Muslims in the city has meant that Bradford has become bi-cultural.

Immigrants are the creators of Britain new wealth, otherwise, inner cities deprived areas could not get new lease of life. The native Brits regard such areas as ghettoes. Integration is not religious and cultural, it is economic and Muslims are well integrated into British society and at the same time they are proud of their Islamic, linguistic and cultural identities, inspite of discrimination they have been facing in all walks of life. According to UN, 80% of British Muslims feel discriminated. They are less burden on social services. Immigrants made up 8.7% of the population, but accounted for 10.2% of all collected income tax

It is often quoted by the Western media that Muslim schools ghettoizes the children, and even lead to their radicalisation if they are not integrated. There is no evidence that faith schools lead to a "ghettoized education system. In British schools, pupils are encouraged to focus too much on their similarities rather than their differences. The integrationist approach merely results in Muslims feeling that their faith, language and culture is not respected.

A report by the Institute for Community Cohesion found that native parents were deserting some schools after finding their children out numbered by pupils from ethnic minorities. Schools in parts of England are becoming increasingly segregated. The study focused on 13 local authorities. Many of the schools and colleges are segregated and this was generally worsening over recent years. This is RACISM because British society is the home of institutional racism. My statement regarding Muslim schools where there is no place for non-Muslim child or a teacher is based on educational process and not on racism. Muslim children need Muslim teachers during their developmental periods. For higher studies and research, Muslim teacher is not a priority.IAhttp://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk

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Linda Cedarbaum • Apr 1, 2014 at 08:40

Where are the British lawyers who can sue the school system on behalf of the staff that was maligned and driven out? They should sue to get their positions reinstated with punitive damages and back pay, have the community parent boards behind these corruptions of the system fired and barred from participating in the school/community councils and personally sued for starting libelous campaigns against staff for their own gain and corrupt obstruction of the British educational system. Whether or not the majority of the student body is Muslim, the educational system is British. Where is the British sense of ethics and rule of law? Where is the example they are setting to the entire British public? Does corruption and manipulation have a place in British society, education and jurisprudence? Where are the voices that demand fairness under the law, British Law? These outrages against the foundations of British society should be shared and trumpeted everywhere. This is neither isolated, nor accidental, nor benign or open for interpretation.

Robert Levinson, 67, an American citizen, is a retired DEA and FBI agent. In 2007, while researching a cigarette smuggling case as a private investigator, he was abducted in Iran and has since been held hostage.

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